ASCENT Blog

What’s new with the AutoCAD Civil 3D 2013 Fundamentals Book?

AutoCAD Civil 3D 2013 was released on April 4, 2012. With it came a few new features like rail alignments, pressure pipes, and survey queries just to name a few. Of course, these features have been added to the AutoCAD Civil 3D 2013 Fundamentals course but the biggest changes to the book are items that will make it more teachable.

The first big change is that Civil 3D Fundamentals will be available in both a metric version and an imperial version this year. In separating the units into two separate books, students will have a much easier time following the exercises without getting confused on which numbers they should be typing into the software. The second big change, and the biggest in my opinion, is that it now follows ACI standards much better. Many of you may be familiar with the Autodesk Certified Instructor program and may be working toward getting certified yourself. A very important part of becoming an ACI is being able to define the objectives you will be covering in each lesson and making sure that you break lessons up into short, highly engaging, and understandable learning cycles. ASCENT has added learning objectives to both the lecture material and the exercises to help you in this area (as shown below).

For years AutoCAD Civil 3D software has been taught in large chunks of content at a time. In fact, before I went through the ACI program myself, I used to teach the interface components found in the first chapter all in one big lecture as many do. Then students would spend 50 minutes finishing the exercise in the book. Teaching in this way tends to leave students feeling overwhelmed and confused about what they just learned. If they don’t understand everything in the first chapter, then it creates problems throughout the course because something important like the user interface will be used throughout the course and slows everyone down as you try to help people understand things you have already covered.

In the 2013 book, I have broken up the content into much more manageable exercises. For example, a good instructor should be able to introduce the overall user interface in 5 to 10 minutes of lecture. Then they should be able to spend another 5 minutes demonstrating what was just discussed so that when the students try the 5 minute exercise they have no problem remembering and understanding what they just learned and are able to complete the exercise without any trouble.

The bonus for those wanting to go through the ACI program is that you are able to use ASCENT content during the ACI workshop while getting certified. Each exercise outlines how long it should take a student to complete (as shown in the image above) which will help you properly set up a good learning cycle. All that is left for you to do is practice demonstrating the topic in the software and keeping students engaged.

Speaking of certification, if you or your students are looking to become professionally certified by taking the Autodesk Certification exams, another thing we have added to all our books is an indicator that shows which certification objectives are covered in each section (as shown below).

I would love to hear how it works for you in the classroom so please leave your questions and comments and I will get back to you.

What’s New in ASCENT’s AutoCAD 2013 Fundamentals Training Guide and in the AutoCAD 2013 Software

By Lisa Kemp

We have all been working hard here, aiming to get the updated versions of our training guides to you as quickly as possible. My focus has been on the AutoCAD 2013 Fundamentals book. With this blog I wanted to highlight some of the new things that you will see in the training guide as it pertains to both the 2013 software and the changes we have made to improve the books.

In terms of general improvements this year, we have added Learning Objectives to the Chapters. The goal of these is to provide you with a high level list of the items covered in the training guide. Another exciting addition is of an Appendix containing the Professional Exam Certification Objectives. These objectives are also identified at the beginning of the corresponding sections in the book, enabling you to find the topics that you should be reviewing. As always we have continued to use the and images, we just made them a little more engaging to help them stand out on the page

 

The following are highlights of the new or enhanced software items in the training guide:

• Welcome Window: This window opens when the AutoCAD software is launched and is divided into three areas: Work, Learn, and Extend. These three areas are described in the training guide to provide new AutoCAD users with information on how they can get additional help.
• Command Line: You can now scroll through a list of commands to select the one that you want to use. The command list can be filtered by starting to type the command name. It changes to only display commands starting with the letters that you have typed.

When in a command, all of its options display in the Command Line and are highlighted in blue. This is an improvement that I use a lot, because I can now select the options directly in the Command Line by selecting the highlighted text. This is much faster than typing the option’s shortcut keys. This is taught at the beginning of the training guide and used in the practices throughout the Chapters.

• File Format: The drawing file format has been changed and drawings that are used in the training guide are saved in the 2013 version of the AutoCAD software.
• Object Properties: When I select an object and then hover the cursor over options in the Color or Linetype drop-down list in Object Properties, the selected objects display a preview of how they would look if the highlighted option were to be selected. This is covered in the lecture material in the training guide.
• Fillets, Chamfers, and Offsets: I find the preview that displays during the Fillet, Chamfer, and Offset commands to be very useful as it enables me to determine whether I need to make any changes before completing the command. This is covered in the lecture material and practices in the training guide.
• Arrays: The way the Array command is used has changed significantly. A default array now displays when you are creating a Rectangular, Polar, or Path array and you then modify it as needed before completing the command. You can also modify it once the command is finished. The practices related to working with Rectangular and Polar arrays have been updated to reflect the changes to the command and a new Path array practice has been added to the book.

• Quick View Drawings and Quick View Layouts: In Quick View Layouts and Quick View Drawings, the current layout or drawing displays a green border around the thumbnail and uses bold text in the title. All of the images in the training guide that relate to this have been updated.

• Viewports: There are now two ways to create viewports, depending on whether you are creating them in Model Space or in a Layout. For Model Space, there is a new Model Viewports panel in the View tab. For Layouts, there is a new Layout tab>Layout Viewports panel. This is covered in both the lecture material and practices in the training guide.

I hope this has helped give you an overview of the changes and improvements to the AutoCAD 2013 software and to ASCENT’s supporting training guide. I also just finished another exciting project that I know many of you will be excited about. I have created a metric only AutoCAD 2013 Fundamentals training guide. It is available now!

Why Should Instructors Be Interested in What is New in the Latest Autodesk Software?

By Elvis R. Sverko

With the recent release of the 2013 Autodesk software, there are many great reasons to upgrade to it. But I’m not going to describe the new features in them now. We’ll have other posts for some of that. I’d like to focus on why instructors of the software should be interested in it.

First of all, it’s in the agreement. (Well, something to the effect of not using outdated software, but I’m not getting into the details of it here, if you agreed to it, you should be aware of it.)

Secondly, with the latest software, comes the latest file format. You don’t want to be stuck not being able to read a client’s files because they use the latest version, and your old antiquated version can’t read it. Asking them to save back doesn’t put much confidence in your abilities.

Not to mention, what would a client who is on the latest version of the software, think about learning the old version? They would wonder what they might be missing. Again, doesn’t look very good for you.

But not only the latest version and file format, you can’t forget the latest interoperability with other 3^rd party files. Oh yeah! Many upgrades here. From point clouds, to STL, to updated translators. The list is huge. Your version of the software had better be able to talk to everyone else out there.

With more and more of the software adding and improving the marking menu and mini-toolbar, getting used to and familiar with the user interface is definitely an advantage for you. As an instructor, you need to be comfortable with this aspect, so upgrade soon, so you have more time to get used to it. Your students need to see you as an expert with it.

And who hasn’t heard of Autodesk 360? The latest version of the software is directly connected to these excellent online services. With online document storage, you can teach your class from anywhere. And Autodesk Exchange Apps is also a great resource for apps for the software.

Again, I’m not going to get into any detail on specific software feature upgrades or new commands, but rest assured, there are plenty of them in the latest version of Autodesk’s softwares, that you’ll be well pleased.

Oh sure, the latest version of software might have some bugs. But don’t let that fear stop you. Autodesk goes through much beta testing with many of its users (including me), that those freak occurrences are mostly eliminated. And the new version most likely even fixed some bugs from the older version. But when was the last time a software bug halted the world anyway? Y2k? Yeah, my clock didn’t even flinch.

Students want to learn what is new, and how to use it. Odds are you’re instructing people who already know and use the software, but they want training on the new features. You’d better be ready.

Finally, why would you not want to be teaching the latest and the greatest software?

It’s OK to make mistakes, but don’t make the mistake of not trying something new. Upgrade to the newest version of the software, and get to know what it has to offer.

“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new” - Albert Einstein

 

By Elvis R. Sverko